Privacy

31869 readers

465 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

288

Backdoor found in widely used Linux utility breaks encrypted SSH connections | Ars Technica (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

TL;DR there was a backdoor found in the XZ program. All major distros have been updated but it is recommended that you do a fresh install on systems that are exposed to the internet and that had the bad version of the program. Only upstream distros were affected.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I honestly think BSD has the potential to be worse due lack of people. I think the best option is to not be paranoid as a user. If someone needs to be paranoid it is the maintainers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I think the best option is to not be paranoid as a user.

Yeah, just never be a dissident, or a whistleblower, or an activist, or a member of a vulnerable marginalized group. Remember, if you obey there's no reason to fear being spied on.

I really don't think you understand how serious this kind of backdoor is. It puts certain people in real danger.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And I don't think you understand OPs point. Of course you should be paranoid as a person like that, but most users aren't targets. If you, as a regular user, get this paranoid about using computers, maybe you should evaluate your priorities.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

If you, as a regular user, get this paranoid about using computers, maybe you should evaluate your priorities.

"Regular user" seems to be a strange counter to all the people I just listed that would be affected here. I'm not worried about myself, I'm worried about the people whose privacy and security is extremely important in this context.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

These people do not seem to be affected unless they run Arch for some reason.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's only the case because it was caught fast. That was lucky.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Most definitely